Introduction: Communication between nurses and patients is an important part of providing better health services and improving their health. In the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where the patient is in critical condition and usually in mechanical ventilation and sedation, it is difficult to communicate with the medical staff. The ICU environment is 'special' because the care provided is intensive and the staff are constantly busy, resulting in a limited relationship between them and every patient. Communication between nurses and mechanically ventilated patients in ICUs has not been fully explored in Greece.
Purpose: The recording of the views and knowledge of the ICU nurses on the difficulties they face in communicating with ventilated patients at Heraklion University General Hospital, as well as recording the communication skills required. The research questions asked were:
- What are the factors that affect communication in the ICUs?
- What is the knowledge, attitude and behavior of nurses on communication with intubated patients?
- Are nurses' behavior influenced by factors such as gender, past service, educational level, etc.?
- Is there a need to train nursing staff to overcome the challenges of communicating with mechanically ventilated patients?
Methodology: This is a cross-sectional observational study. The research was carried out in 3 units of PAGNI: ICU of Children, ICU of Adults and Intensive Care Unit of Heart Disease. A questionnaire with 37 closed-ended and open-ended questions as well as a visual analogue scale was administered to all the nurses in these units for its permission to use was requested by the researcher, Kormentza-Karambotsu Sofia. Data were collected during the period June - July 2019. P values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: The mean age of the 60 participants (81.7% women) was 43.17 (± 7.91) years. 60% (n = 36) were married and 70% (n = 42) had children. The nurses did not seem to have any specialization in the ICU. 66.7% (n = 40) and experience with mechanically ventilated patients came from years of working there (p <0.001). Nurses with less experience in the unit reported that they felt 26% fear and 31% regret for patients with mechanical respiratory support and wish they would have gained more knowledge in 68.33% four-year training (p = 0.01 ) for the specific category of these patients. Protective factors (p = 0.02) are 21.8% way of thinking, many nurses point out that reps and leave, outpatient activities help them to think optimistically, smooth working with colleagues 16.7% and workload 16 , 7% ("healthy" distribution of heavy case patients).
Conclusions: The gender of the nurses, the neurological status of the patient, the environment of the ICUs and staff shortages are factors affecting communication with mechanically ventilated patients. Nurses' knowledge is scarce (they come with experience in the field) and they want continuing education. They feel constant pressure and face it with their way of thinking and a climate of solidarity.